Digital Marketing for Industrial Companies: Your Guide to Getting More Deals

How to use this industrial marketing guide

This industrial marketing guide provides an all-in-one resource for learning:

• How digital marketing can reach qualified buyers and turn them into leads
• How to create an effective budget for digital marketing
• How to use digital channels to build awareness, leads, and revenue

The basics of industrial marketing

Learn the basics of industrial marketing now:

What is industrial marketing?

Industrial marketing uses online or offline channels to promote a business and its products or services to relevant markets. Common marketing channels for industrial companies include search, paid, and email.

Why is digital marketing important for industrial companies?

Marketing an industrial company online — or using digital marketing — is important because that’s where most people go when looking for a solution, whether it’s an industrial product manufacturer or industrial service provider.

Additional benefits of using digital marketing include:

• Improving lead quality: Online marketing makes it possible to target users via demographics, behaviors, and other data points, which can create hyper-targeted (and effective) efforts for generating qualified leads.
• Nurturing bigger deals: With digital marketing capabilities like remarketing and account-based marketing, it’s possible to nurture bigger deals throughout the sales cycle — no matter how long the cycle lasts.
• Empowering sales teams: Digital marketing also makes it possible to align marketing and sales data, empowering sales teams to create better pitches by understanding a buyer’s touchpoints before (and during) the sales process.

Is digital marketing better than traditional marketing for industrial companies?

Yes — and no.

In our experience (which encompasses thousands of hours in the industrial and manufacturing space), we’ve found that industrial companies benefit from digital and traditional marketing strategies, like search engine optimization (SEO) and tradeshows.

However, when measuring the effectiveness of these two outlets, we’ve found that most industrial businesses see a higher return on investment (ROI) from their digital vs. traditional marketing efforts.

That’s why — if debating about where to allocate marketing spend — we recommend investing in digital because it’ll provide a higher return, which will create more buy-in (and potentially budget) from leadership long-term.

How long does industrial marketing take for products and/or services?

Turnaround times for industrial marketing, whether for a product or service, depend on the channel. Paid channels, like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, have faster turnaround times, while unpaid channels, like search engine optimization, have longer turnaround times.

As an example, businesses can see overnight results from launching a paid ad campaign. That won’t happen with SEO. Companies that haven’t done SEO before will often need to practice it for three to six months before seeing results.

However, that doesn’t mean organizations should invest all their marketing budget into the fastest-performing channels. Instead, consider an omnichannel strategy. This strategy uses multiple channels to deliver a higher (and more cost-effective) ROI.

It also insulates businesses if a channel’s costs, effectiveness, or uses would change.

Investing in digital marketing for industrial companies

Learn all about investing in digital marketing for industrial companies now:

How much does industrial marketing cost?

Prices for industrial marketing depend on several factors, including:

• The provider, whether in-house or external
• The number of services and/or strategies
• The aggressiveness of the goals and/or strategy

On average, industrial companies outsourcing their marketing efforts will invest $6000 to $15,000 per month, often including website maintenance and a few digital marketing strategies, like search engine optimization and paid advertising.

Note: An alternative to the above budget is to set aside 7-10% of your revenue for marketing.

How do I create an industrial marketing budget?

When creating an industrial marketing budget, consider the following tips:

1. Understand stakeholder expectations for marketing metrics and performance
2. Audit existing marketing performance and returns based on stakeholder expectations
3. Create Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and Time-based goals
4. Consider setting aside 70% of budget for strategies that currently “work”
5. Consider setting aside 20% of budget for strategies expected to “work”
6. Consider setting aside 10% of budget for strategies that are brand-new

For the best results, remember that digital marketing is flexible. If a strategy doesn’t work, it’s possible to reallocate budget to strategies that are working. That adaptability can give your business a competitive edge in the marketplace.

Getting started with digital marketing for industrial companies

Learn how to get started with digital marketing as an industrial company now:

What are the most effective strategies for industrial marketing?

The most effective strategies for industrial marketing include:

Active and optimized website

It’s not enough to have a website — businesses need an active website, like by:

• Sharing updates, like awards or certifications received
• Publishing content, like a blog post on new industry standards
• Updating relevant information, like phone number or address

Being active is great, but it won’t benefit your organization’s bottom line if your website is difficult for people to use. That’s why it’s important to have a website optimized for search engines and users.

Together, the two optimizations make it easier for users to:

• Find your website through search engines
• Take action, like contacting your business

Because this guide explores industrial SEO next, let’s focus on user-focused optimizations like:

• Following the company’s established style guide for copywriting, colors, fonts, etc.
• Establishing an easy-to-follow website navigation based on user expectations
• Streamlining website checkout processes and/or forms
• Producing skimmable content, whether for product or service pages or blog posts

You can get fast feedback on a site’s usability by asking friends or family to browse your website. It’s okay if they don’t understand what your business sells, either! Their experience will spot bigger issues that could lead to big wins.

Browsing examples of other industrial websites can also spark ideas for improving yours.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization is one of the most effective strategies for marketing an industrial company. That’s because most people — including business buyers — use search engines like Google to find what they need.

With the first position claiming 33% of search traffic, it’s critical to rank high in search results.

Getting to that first position requires several optimizations, including:

• Completing an SEO audit (a free tool like SEO Checker can help here)
• Allowing search engines to crawl and index the website
• Researching the keywords people use to find products or services like yours
• Producing SEO content to target these keywords
• Acquiring third-party mentions (and links) from reputable sites

Because search engine optimization has several parts, like research, writing, and outreach, businesses will often get professional help. A full-service agency (like WebFX), for example, can help an organization optimize all its SEO elements without the hassle.

Pay-per-click advertising

Pay-per-click advertising is another effective solution for industrial products or services marketing.

With PPC for industrial companies, businesses can get a top spot in search results on Google and Bing. You can also advertise on social media networks, like YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to reach users.

Either way, most of these ad networks operate on a cost-per-click (CPC) model, which means your business only pays when someone clicks on your ad — and what you pay is set by your customized bid.

Optimization tips for better PPC performance include:

• Add negative keywords (or keywords where your ads shouldn’t appear)
• Set up remarketing campaigns to retarget specific users
• Build dedicated landing pages to create a cohesive user experience
• Test different ad copy

Because paid ads can get expensive, investing in other lead generation strategies, like search engine optimization, is important. With a diverse strategy, you’ll provide your business with multiple sources for attracting leads — versus depending on a single source.

Content marketing

Content marketing is essential to industrial marketing because so many strategies depend on it, like SEO for content and PPC for ad copy. While some organizations opt for AI-generated content for convenience, the ones that succeed use people-generated content.

That’s because people-generated content provides new perspectives and first-hand experiences.

Not to mention, there are multiple case studies where websites using AI-generated content have lost significant traffic due to search engines like Google updating their algorithm (while Google doesn’t penalize AI content, it does demand unique, high-quality content).

You can produce compelling content for your organization by:

• Getting content ideas from customer-facing team members, like sales representatives
• Asking internal experts to share their opinions or advice
• Highlighting author and/or company experience, awards, or certifications in content

In our experience, industrial companies often struggle with content marketing because:

• Knowledgeable team members don’t have the time to write or review content
• Freelancers don’t understand the business or industry enough to write about it
• Industry-specific writers are too difficult to find or expensive to hire

That doesn’t mean your organization should give up on content marketing. Instead, consider partnering with a content marketing agency with industry-specific writers and editors on demand.

WebFX, for example, has more than 100+ specialized content producers, which has allowed our clients in specialized fields, from industrial to healthcare to finance, to create accurate, on-brand content that pushes toward the company’s goals.

If you’re curious to see our writing samples and case studies, go ahead and contact us.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a perfect fit for industrial companies because email is one of the best lead nurturing strategies. Your business can remain connected throughout the buyer journey, whether it lasts months or years.

Get started with this type of industrial marketing by:

• Researching potential campaigns, like when users submit a quote form
• Determining lead magnets, like a whitepaper or guide
• Setting up an email management platform, like Mailchimp
• Adding calls-to-action (CTAs) to relevant website content (if applicable)

For the best results with email marketing, remember to provide value. It’s more than reminding users about what you offer and what makes your offer competitive — it’s about understanding what users need to realize they need a solution like yours.

Account-based marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) is another answer to B2B industrial marketing. Companies like yours can use this strategy to target the accounts that matter most to the organization.

You can use account-based marketing to target accounts on:

• Social media networks, like LinkedIn
• Website visits, like through personalization
• Ad networks, like Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising

Because account-based marketing involves multiple steps, from researching accounts to developing creatives to managing campaigns, most industrial companies partner with an ABM agency to use this newer strategy.

Close more deals with industrial marketing pros

Congrats! You’ve learned how to get started with digital marketing for industrial companies.

Getting started can be tough, though, which is why we’re here to help. With thousands of hours of experience in the space (and 24 million leads generated for our clients), WebFX is a trusted partner for industrial marketing.

Learn how our team can help by contacting us online today (or giving us a ring at 888-601-5359)!